HS Profile: Matt Centrowitz

Broadneck HS; Annapolis, MD

They say the key to becoming a great runner is to choose your parents carefully. Matt Centrowitz couldn’t have picked a much better gene pool to come from; his father, Matt Sr., barely missed becoming the fourth U.S. sub-four minute high school miler, was a two-time Olympian (1976 and 1980) and set the American record for 5,000 meters (13:12.91) in 1982. His mother, Beverly, was a field hockey player who only began running in college but turned in a 2:08 half mile.

So it’s not surprising that young Matt has emerged as one of the top distance runners in the country as he enters his senior year. After all, he’s following in the footsteps of his older sister, Lauren, a state champ in cross country now at Stanford. What’s perhaps unusual is that neither of them began their athletic lives as runners, although that might have seemed preordained.

"I did every sport you could think of," says Matt. "I really only started running during some summer meets in middle school." Even then, his parents didn’t push him into running. "My mom wanted me to play lacrosse, and my dad would say, ‘Maybe you should stick with soccer. You’re not tough enough to run.’ I guess they were using reverse psychology on me."

Whatever the reason, once Matt laced on his spikes he enjoyed instant success, running 4:38 for the 1,600m indoors and 9:47 for the outdoor 3,200m. "Two of the kids who beat me were also freshmen, so I realized I had to get serious if I wanted to do well the next three years."

Matt decided to give up soccer for cross country, and after summer of moderate training came away with a state championship in his first cross country season. Outdoors he repeated that accomplishment in the 3,200m, lowering his time to 9:35 and then 9:13 at the Nike Outdoor Nationals.

"I decided to train a little more seriously for cross country," he says. That resulted in another championship and the fastest time ever run on the state course. His first appearance at the Foot Locker regionals at Van Cortlandt Park, where his father had often raced in high school, turned into a disappointing 41st-place finish.

Matt rebounded from that outdoors at the Penn Relays, where he won the high school 3,000m in 8:20.9, the fastest winning time in two decades. He didn’t carry that into the Nike Nationals, finishing 16th in the 3,200m 9:16.18. "I didn’t get into that race mentally," he says. "I think I underestimate my opponents. Still, it was a good experience to run against the big boys."

After every disappointing race his father is there to put things in perspective. "He tells me that’s why our sport is so tough — you’ve got to take the lows with the highs."

His father, who has coached the American University team to national prominence in just 10 years, has also influenced Matt’s training, keeping with his Oregon tradition of relatively low mileage, that it’s better to underdo than overdo. Until this year, Matt never ran more than 60 miles a week and only ran once a day.

"I never really knew about my dad’s accomplishments until I was a sophomore," he says. "He said they were nothing special, that I can do better." Perhaps this is the year we’ll see.